|
The Lord Bude posted:That's a good point, although it's hard to properly gauge how much of an impact that has in reality - I mean authors like Orson Scott Card are still wildly popular despite being far worse than Rowling. I think the average person either has no idea about the relatively recent stuff re Rowling or is willing to separate their opinion of the books from the author. IIRC that spinoff series of films is still hugely successful despite the dual controversies of Rowling and Depp and also being extremely poo poo movies? The second Fantastic Beasts did significantly worse than the first and that was before JK truly went off the deep end. The Potter fandom has done separated the books from the author but there's a massive part of it that refuses to spend money on anything that will give JK money
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 15:35
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 11, 2024 00:17 |
|
|
The way gate being a lovely Stargate in the middle of a field is baffling change. Loial also needed more screen time, he basically has no reason to want to help these stupid humans. He has like one line to Rand before he traipsed off to be a non entity for another 2 episodes.
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 15:36
|
|
|
CainFortea posted:Wheel of time series wordcount: 4410036 to be fair, if you remove all the braid tugging, sniffing and arms crossing under breasts, it's more like 55k words
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 15:39
|
|
|
crepeface posted:to be fair, if you remove all the braid tugging, sniffing and arms crossing under breasts, it's more like 55k words That braid tug is VITAL to the plot!!
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 15:40
|
|
|
I did notice that all of Nynaeve's mini-braids have been combined into a single MEGA-BRAID-ZORD in this latest episode. So, immersion preserved
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 15:41
|
|
|
Invalid Validation posted:The way gate being a lovely Stargate in the middle of a field is baffling change It's literally just a gate, who cares?
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 15:43
|
|
|
crepeface posted:goons are absolutely that dumb
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 15:45
|
|
|
The Lord Bude posted:The skeleton might be the same but the specifics are completely different between the two. To be clear I do like the show. It's almost like I'm simultaneously thrilled and disappointed. I like what I'm seeing but I also wish I could have seen cool moments from the actual book on screen like the boys adventures in Baerlon (which would have gone a long way towards giving them more screen time to develop a personality) and Rand falling into the Garden/meeting Elayne and Morgase/Elaida. The only things I absolutely hate so far are the changes to Mat's character and the booty call ter'angreal. We also got like two seconds of Thom before he 'died' whereas if he'd been there from the start we could have seen more of him. I also feel like the air of mystery from the book is missing somewhat. Honestly I think the team is doing a really good job on the TV show. There's absolutely no way to do them perfectly like the books for a lot of reasons. And to be honest, as we get to the later books chopping them down will be a mercy because man it's a slog for awhile I'm with you on wishing that some more of my favorite moments made it across. I really wish they could have at least done the garden meeting sequence, plus then you get the prophecy bit when he meets Morgase/Elaida. Not to mention it'd give Rand a chance to be a character a bit earlier outside of reacting to Matt. But for the sake of the story and keeping things moving, getting them to Tar Valon and just basically doing all the plot bits from Camelyn there sort of makes sense. Also it lets you get the bit between Moiraine and Siuan, which helps establish the prophecy stuff without needing monologues or flashbacks which works better for TV I think, so it's a totally reasonable choice
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 15:46
|
|
|
buffalo all day posted:I really don't get the insane "i want the books converted into a teleplay, cut nothing" fans for this series because there's already a great performed 1 for 1 adaptation of the books, and it's called the audiobooks. it has different voices for different characters, dramatic reading, everything you could want I'm not going that far, but there is a very large spectrum between what you're describing, which I agree would be stupid; and the relatively loose adaptation we're getting. One thing I think would have been incredible is a series of full cast audiobooks - Tamora Pierce's work had that done and it was pretty great - Audio Books where they have a different actor for all the major characters and they all sit together and do the reading so there is an element of acting to it with them all being able to react to each other. CainFortea posted:Wheel of time series wordcount: 4410036 crepeface posted:to be fair, if you remove all the braid tugging, sniffing and arms crossing under breasts, it's more like 55k words Obviously this is a joke but Jordan's style was to describe everything in minute detail. I think if we take into account the percentage of the words that are dialogue or actual narration of stuff happening vs description it balances out Elvis_Maximus posted:Honestly I think the team is doing a really good job on the TV show. I wanna emphasise again, despite my criticism I do genuinely love the show (except for the booty call ter'angreal).
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 15:49
|
|
|
The Lord Bude posted:Obviously this is a joke but Jordan's style was to describe everything in minute detail. I think if we take into account the percentage of the words that are dialogue or actual narration of stuff happening vs description it balances out You can count that up, I'm not doing that to millions of words. That would also mean having to re-read LotR and i'm not going that far. Also, percentage of words or percentage of dialog, internal AND external?
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 15:55
|
|
|
Chomposaur posted:The root of most of the changes is the decision to bring Moiraine and aes sedai politics to the forefront in the first season. The main reason to do that is to show new viewers one of the most interesting parts of the world and give them a taste of the broader political trajectory the show might follow in the future. Readers of 800 page fantasy epics expect a slow burn, your average person clicking into Amazon's new fantasy TV series on a whim needs a more compelling case delivered more quickly. As an aside, I think the people who did the recent His Dark Material adaptation probably had the same reason for intercutting a whole bunch of side plot/background stuff into what (in the first book of that series) was quite a simple and effective fantasy journey narrative. GoT of course had the advantage that there was a lot of wider-world politicking from very early on. I do think WoT is a more difficult adaptation to make work for modern audiences. Hell, any high fantasy is notoriously difficult to turn into a good screen adaptation. We are probably lucky that we got whatever WoT series is instead of Shannara or whatever. But that doesn't mean a slow-burn approach wouldn't have been more effective (IMO) if done well. EoTW's opening as-written is great. The short prologue gives you a peak into the wider world, the Power and the danger it entails, the historical character that the whole story effectively revolves around, and it introduces the Big Bad of the first (four?) books. Then it takes you to the tiniest, bumfuck town in the middle of nowhere, and begins the books' (much slower than the show) reveal of the massive intricacies of the world, its mechanics and wildly varying cultures. At the same time it tells a quite effectively creepy, at times almost horror-esque, fantasy story about how these young people in the village (during a weird neverending winter, surrounded by a bunch of eerie portents) are being stalked by a terrifying and unnatural cloaked figure, which leads to the (awesome) climactic scene where the bucolic peace of Rand's isolated farmhouse is blown to pieces by a giant hosed up wolf-headed monster that crashes through the front door while they're making dinner and tries to murder and eat them. Anyways, show is what it is. It's still kind of fun to see familiar stuff on-screen, and Rosamund Pike has totally nailed Moraine, I reckon and Siuan too olollololol. Rarity posted:It's literally just a gate, who cares?
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 15:56
|
|
|
The Lord Bude posted:I'm not going that far, but there is a very large spectrum between what you're describing, which I agree would be stupid; and the relatively loose adaptation we're getting. though this would be very cool. i will say that I did not miss that while listening to the books, the readers (and, frankly, Jordan) did a great job giving everyone a distinctive voice so it does feel like people bouncing off each other
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 16:02
|
|
|
Rosamund is really good at being Moraine but I don’t necessarily think it was a good idea to put the series on her back since Rand is going to become the main focus and I don’t know if the guy who plays Rand can really act cause he doesn’t have poo poo to do.
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 16:03
|
|
|
But if they cast %popular actor% for TDR it'd kind of ruin their whole, "who's the dragon you guys??? is these 4 people you've never heard of or the 1 guy you have??" mystery element they're doing. Then they'd need to cast more established actors to be all the not-dragons, too. That's a big increase in budget.
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 16:05
|
|
|
Good actors and well known actors are two separate (but sometimes overlapping) groups of humans
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 16:10
|
|
|
Rand is fine so far. I don't think we've seen enough of him yet to be able to decide he's a bad actor. I went and bought the Pike version of the Audio book after everyone in this thread kept talking about how awesome it is. This is the first time I've had a book read to me since I was in elementary school, it's really strange, like exercising a long disused muscle that's atrophied over time. I don't know what to do with my eyes or my hands.
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 16:15
|
|
|
The Lord Bude posted:Rand is fine so far. I don't think we've seen enough of him yet to be able to decide he's a bad actor. I've heard great things about Pike's version too, enjoy!
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 16:17
|
|
|
The Lord Bude posted:If I were adapting a fantasy epic I'd value the creative freedom of 8-12 episode seasons over the budget of a feature film every time. I think the genre is better suited to TV. That being said I'm willing to bet now that the show has been a crazypants success they'll be getting more money thrown at them. That may happen, and I hope it does, but since they're filming season two right now, it's pretty unlikely WoT will see a big increase in budget and/or episode count until season three at the earliest.
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 16:17
|
|
|
El Grillo posted:To be fair to people in this thread I don't think there's been anyone saying you have to make a carbon copy of the book. I mean goons are dumb but most are not quite that dumb. Apologies - I was definitely not trying to insinuate a level of goon dumbness.
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 16:18
|
|
|
jng2058 posted:That may happen, and I hope it does, but since they're filming season two right now, it's pretty unlikely WoT will see a big increase in budget and/or episode count until season three at the earliest. That's fine, that's when they're going to start to need it. Reading up on Josha some more, it would appear that WoT is the first english language production he's ever been in. I wonder if part of the reason people think he might be a bit stilted is that he isn't as comfortable with english yet. He also has some musical theatre experience.
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 16:23
|
|
|
I completely trust the casting That's the one thing I've had zero misgivings about
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 16:33
|
|
|
If there was any criticism I've got of the TV show at this point I think it's mostly that they've kinda excised a lot of Rand's things for some reason. Probably the biggest example with with Logain in Tar Valon. In the book version, iirc, they're in Camelyn and climb the wall to get a better look at the false dragon. Rand and Logain lock eyes, and the experience is what causes Rand to get dizzy and fall into the garden to meet Elayne. This is also after they flee the trolloc's where Rand channels to remove Bela's exhaustion and after he lightning bolts the corner of the inn to escape the dark friend. Matt's already got the dagger and is getting sicker (which I think is why he's not on the wall as well..? Been awhile since my last re-read), and the garden sequence is ALSO where we meet Elaida and she does her whole "man that will break the world" or whatever prophecy. The book lays it on pretty thick, although as a kid when I was reading these I honestly didn't notice half the foreshadowing which is kinda funny. If I was to take a stab at it, I think they're basically trying to keep Rand mostly low key so that the reveal that he's the Dragon hits harder in the next two episodes at the Eye of the World. But unless they do some heavy lifting in the next two episodes it's going to be a little jarring for the series to all of a sudden shift a ton of focus to his character. I wish we had a little bit more foreshadowing with Rand, or spent a little more time with him at least. I guess there's plenty of time after he becomes the Dragon though
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 16:35
|
|
|
Rarity posted:It's literally just a gate, who cares? The fact that it requires channelling to open is an unnecessary and baffling change given that the fact that waygates are the only method of rapid transit open to non-channellers is going to be a major plotploint multiple times going forward in the books. it's also completely unnecessary; they just did it because they thought it looked cool.
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 16:38
|
|
|
it's a classic example of something nerds are furious about that could be explained by a single "oh that one was blocked because the leaf was removed" at any time in the future it becomes necessary
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 16:39
|
|
|
I hope Loial stays the only one who knows how to navigate inside the ways, otherwise why even bring him?
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 16:40
|
|
|
Old Kentucky Shark posted:The fact that it requires channelling to open is an unnecessary and baffling change given that the fact that waygates are the only method of rapid transit open to non-channellers is going to be a major plotploint multiple times going forward in the books. it's also completely unnecessary; they just did it because they thought it looked cool. weird i missed the part where they said it requires channeling to open loial (laughing): you hasty aes sedai think you have to channel them open?? i mean, you can...but every ogier knows you just have to press this button over here. humans!
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 16:45
|
|
|
Old Kentucky Shark posted:The fact that it requires channelling to open is an unnecessary and baffling change given that the fact that waygates are the only method of rapid transit open to non-channellers is going to be a major plotploint multiple times going forward in the books. it's also completely unnecessary; they just did it because they thought it looked cool. My dude the method a waygate gets opened is 100% immaterial to the overall story in every way and you can guarantee that the next episode is going to feature Loial rambling on about the history of the ways and in all likelihood an exact explanation for what we saw and why it's that way, because the show has done this multiple times already with other "issues" like the extensive movements Are Sedai user to channel/Valda cutting that yellow sister's hands off.
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 16:47
|
|
|
Old Kentucky Shark posted:The fact that it requires channelling to open is an unnecessary and baffling change given that the fact that waygates are the only method of rapid transit open to non-channellers is going to be a major plotploint multiple times going forward in the books. it's also completely unnecessary; they just did it because they thought it looked cool. I really don't get why this is such a hang up for people. If the show kept it as a stedding, they'd need a whole bunch more props, sets, and Ogier to protect it. Read: $$$$$$$$ Since Bezos didn't want to spend the money on all that, having some random rear end Fargate unprotected that any idiot could just walk into would make even less sense. It's been said plenty of times that someone from the Black could just be with the party of Trollocs using it. Or write in some new Aes Sedai. Or give them an angreal that can open it or any other thing. Making it need a channeler is such a nonissue I don't even understand. e; buffalo all day posted:weird i missed the part where they said it requires channeling to open I mean I don't think Moiraine was doing her hand waving just because it's fun.
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 16:48
|
|
|
The books ramp us up through many different kinds of Fast Travel, just like a JRPG does, and much as how the show has to contend with potential Inn Overload and Fantasy City Overload, they probably have all kinds of reasons to consolidate thematically similar things so the viewers aren't all like "wait didn't we see all this before?" I'd be very surprised if we even see the Portal Stones or if the mechanistic intricacies of Trollocs using the Waygates comes into play at all. As it is WoT has the potential to fall into the Star Trek Voyager trap of entire plots being both created by AND solved by in-universe technobabble. How can we overcome Magic MacGuffin? Oh by using Magic MacGuffin Removal spell. Ultimately for story purposes the bigger issue is "why are they using the Ways at all? Why can't they just go to wherever they're supposed to go to do the thing? Is it a subterfuge thing? A ticking clock/speed thing?" I don't think that was made super clear. At least in the books there was the plot point of "here's how we get out of the city without anyone seeing us"
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 16:54
|
|
|
Elvis_Maximus posted:Rand's things for some reason. Because it would be obvious he's the dragon of they kept those things.
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 16:56
|
|
|
Judkins talking about sad warder episode. Don't know if these have shown up in x-ray but prime video yt account has been listing them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0oMfCfpm3w
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 16:59
|
|
|
Data Graham posted:As it is WoT has the potential to fall into the Star Trek Voyager trap of entire plots being both created by AND solved by in-universe technobabble. I feel like this already happened with inverting weaves. Can't think of other examples off the top of my head as I've only read once though.
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 17:01
|
|
|
CainFortea posted:Because it would be obvious he's the dragon of they kept those things. Yeah for sure. I just wish that there was a little bit of time spent on it outside of him uh.. I guess channeling himself into breaking a door? He's definitely present, but sort of feels a little like a non-character because they're so deliberately keeping him free of anything happening to him I guess It's a shame because post reveal he's going to get increasingly serious and stressed and angry. Would be nice to have a bit of him before all of that happens. But you gotta cut something and other than foreshadowing those points really don't do anything to advance the plot so I can see why they'd end up cut
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 17:01
|
|
|
He did also vomit up a bat, and was like "Hey that mountain looks familiar." It wasn't just going full Juggernaut on a door. I do agree he's been a little too underplayed so far though. I wonder what non-readers will think on future rewatches though; going back and knowing who Rand is will add weight to the foreshadowing with Thom and the dead Aiel, the mountain recognition, the door etc. Is it this week we find out he's the one, or next week?
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 17:06
|
|
|
I think next episode is gonna be Rands episode in a big way. Up till now he's just been The Nice Cute Boy You Left Back Home To Go to College and that's the setup for his baseline.
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 17:07
|
|
|
The Lord Bude posted:That's fine, that's when they're going to start to need it. I don’t think it’s a bad thing for Rand to be a bit stilted, but Josha seems fine to me really. I wouldn’t have pegged him for a non native speaker, but then that’s pretty common for Scandinavians. There were a bunch of swedes at my university in the UK and you’d never have known they weren’t from London.
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 17:08
|
|
|
Beefeater1980 posted:Scandinavians ...he's Dutch...
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 17:09
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/Bain_Chiad/status/1469069753738305541
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 17:09
|
|
|
El Grillo posted:Yeah the visual design of the world in this epic fantasy series doesn't matter at all It's like getting mad that in the LotR movies Minas Tirith was 7 levels instead of 9
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 17:13
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 11, 2024 00:17 |
|
|
KOGAHAZAN!! posted:...he's Dutch... Doh! That’s even closer to English though.
|
|
#
?
Dec 13, 2021 17:14
|
|